Tamed Monster - Chapter 17

Not even a few days had passed before his wife insisted on calling another doctor.

This new doctor was quite different from Osborn, who had been hurriedly summoned from the nearest town last time.

For one, he was younger and appeared to come from a high noble family, judging by his neat attire. Even faced with Lancart’s formidable presence, he showed no fear. The being who was both Lancart and the monster Kuinan found the doctor somewhat displeasing.

‘Will I be able to avoid being discovered?’

Unable to move a step forward, Kuinan simply stared at the doctor while feeling uncertain. Beside him, his wife encouraged him, assuring that no abnormal findings beyond what they could handle would emerge.

“We haven’t yet thoroughly examined whether there are any physical abnormalities. Please remain still, if only for my sake.”

Kuinan had noticed over the past few days that this woman had grown noticeably more favorable toward him.

Her tone was gentle, her gaze warm. It was very different from when they first met.

Back then, Sylvia had no interest or affection for her husband. Her eyes were vacant and her manner strictly professional.

Now things were different. After a few days, when Lady Rossa’s minor outburst was met with her husband defending Sylvia against his own mother, Sylvia clearly harbored favorable feelings toward her husband.

Kuinan, who looked down at Sylvia with curiosity and without understanding, slowly nodded.

“What should I do?”

“First, your clothes…”

Before the doctor could finish speaking, Lancart had already shrugged off his clothes.

In front of Sylvia, he was bold. Without giving her a moment to leave the room, he stripped down to just his underwear and asked the doctor if it was enough.

“P-please sit here.”

Sylvia tried to leave the room at last but found herself unable to, held back by her husband’s intense gaze. Over the past week, she had noticed that when she wasn’t around, Lancart often caused even more trouble among those nearby.

While Sylvia reluctantly took a seat, the doctor placed his hands on Lancart’s body. Lancart twitched with discomfort but submitted quietly to the human’s examination.

Seeing no visible issues, the doctor moved on to taking his pulse. At that moment, Lancart’s deep blue eyes flashed as he recalled Hector’s advice.

“Just breathe evenly. Since you had an accident during battle with the monsters, there’s a chance you’ve been poisoned.”

Unlike the previous doctor, this doctor was well-versed in monsters. Sylvia had deliberately found such a knowledgeable doctor. The Duke family’s longtime personal doctor had been on leave for about two weeks now, so they kept bringing in outside doctors.

“Hmm. Is this how I’m supposed to breathe?”

Though it sounded like he was answering the doctor, Kuinan was actually talking to himself. He let blood flow evenly through his wrist, carefully observing the doctor’s expression.

When he made the blood pulse so regularly that the vessels beneath his wrist visibly throbbed—almost as if his heart was beating that frequently—the doctor frowned in confusion. Thinking he might be causing the pulse to be detected too often, Kuinan quickly slowed the blood flow.

“…Hmm…?”

The doctor’s expression grew puzzled.

Sylvia anxiously watched both her husband and the doctor. Her husband’s expression was strange, and the doctor’s knitted brows looked serious. The doctor raised his head and looked at her husband, but Lancart’s sharp blue eyes pierced his pale face like a silent threat.

“What is it?”

By now, Kuinan caught on. He sent blood regularly to his wrist at exactly 60 beats per minute.

It wasn’t just matching the rhythm that mattered—if something was wrong, it would be detected. But since the monster didn’t fully understand human physiology, he was obsessively fixated on matching the pulse count.

“…abnormalities…”

“Abnormalities?”

“…No, there aren’t.”

The doctor, giving the answer Lancart wanted, was sweating profusely now. It was very different from when he had first entered the room.

He pulled a handkerchief from inside his jacket and wiped the cold sweat from his forehead. Sylvia eyed the doctor suspiciously. Usually, if there were no abnormalities, doctors would simply say so plainly.

This doctor, however, dragged out the words nervously and reluctantly.

“Is that really so?”

The Duke’s pulse fluctuated—from the twenties per minute to over a hundred, then settled around sixty. How could the doctor honestly say all was fine right in front of the Duke?

The doctor felt his life was in danger. He had never before seen symptoms like these.